Choi Studio is proud to be working on a new home for Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) - a not-for-profit, led by a small team of theatre professionals and supported by a generous group of volunteers and patrons.

The devastating 2022 floods saw NORPA’s previous home at Lismore City Hall inundated with two storeys of floodwater. In response and seeking a NORPA-owned presence in the heart of the Lismore CBD, NORPA has since purchased ‘The Joinery’, a historic joinery workshop. Choi Studio and NORPA are working together to reimagine this space as a flood-resilient, world’s best practice arts hub. The project has been a close creative partnership, exploring bold possibilities in adaptive re-use.

The design process works closely with the challenges and constraints of flooding planning to create a mixed-use building that has improved flood resilience. Instead of hiding these measures, the design takes on these constraints and uses them to inform the architectural aesthetics and forms of the interventions. Rehearsal and administration occur in a lifted space on level 1, above the flood line. With new and upgraded administrative and performance facilities, The Joinery will allow NORPA to host public pop-up events, temporary exhibitions, and performances with a new and greater freedom and range.